We receive many daily faxes of 6 types of forms that have been filled
in by typewriters using different fonts. We currently extract the data
from 12 fields on these forms and convert it to comma separated text
for use in another program. We need software to streamline as much of
this as possible

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 20 Jan 2003 12:16 PST

rigmatch...

Which Operating System will you be running the software on?

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Clarification of Question by rigmatch-ga on 20 Jan 2003 14:31 PST

Win 98 or xp

Hello Rigmatch,

I can't tell from your original question the volume of forms or cost
range you are looking for so I'll provide a set of references that
should provide a range of solutions.

Intellicap

A company providing a wide range of products and services. The
"Intelicap" product appears to handle a variety of formats of scanning
and forms.
  http://www.dataperfection.com/InteliProducts/Intelicap.asp?TabID=1

Information Access Systems

Another full spectrum company with a variety of products and services.
The scanning and form processing part is described at
  http://www.iasinc.net/formsprocessing/index.asp
The link near the bottom of the page takes you to a variety of case
studies using their products and services.

Ligature Ltd

Charactereyes, a low end product that costs about $50 to scan
documents, do character recognition, etc. It has capabilities to
ignore large parts of the material (and get just what is in each field
of the form).
  http://www.ligatureltd.com/english/ce.htm
This may be something you want to try first - see how it works before
investing in a higher cost solution. It also has a software
development kit to integrate OCR with other applications.

Parascript LLC

This company has a range of products. FormXtra looks like the best fit
for your application:
  http://www.parascript.com/technology/formextra.cfm
the only drawback I can see for this is they may only offer it through
an "integration partner", but this company may be worth a contact to
be sure. They also offer a "secure" form processing service if that
would be appropriate.

Top Image Systems

Another full spectrum company - both services and products. Their
eFlow product line covers the acquisition of data directly from FAX
machines through entry into a database.
  http://www.tis.co.il/asp/sub.asp?sec=128&sub=626
However, this is another company that may want you to work through a
system integrator; I can't be sure.

This covers five companies that provide a wide range of products and
services. A few other good resources on this topic include:

The Yahoo directory
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Computers/Software/Character_Recognition__OCR_ICR_/

Search phrases such as
  form fax optical character recognition software
  OCR form workflow
and similar items

I hope this provides a good reference to the kind of application you
are looking for. If not, don't hesitate to explain your application
(and constraints) more fully in a clarification request so I can
address your needs more accurately.

  --Maniac

Great answer! Many thanks!

Rigmatch